With Some Shepherds on Special Visas Abandoning Their Flocks, Industry Joins Calls for Federal Immigration Overhaul

Denis Kowitz has a shepherd-retention problem at his Idaho wool-growing operation, and he hopes changes in federal immigration law will help fix it.

"One was named Oscar, the other…well, I can't remember. But he's gone!" he says of two hired hands who left in March, just when he needed them for lambing season on his ranch in Rupert, in southern Idaho.